September 1995: Sony Playstation Launch



Over the summer I had the privilege of trying a Sony Playstation before its U.S. release. To make a long story short, I participated in a test of an upcoming arcade game called Street Fighter the Movie. It was fun, a group of us battled into the wee hours of the night while developers took notes. When we were done they invited us to try a imported Sony Playstation they had in the back. We popped in Battle Arena Toshinden and were impressed, there was no comparison between it and the Saturn. The Playstation graphics looked crisper, more polished. The goofy-looking controller turned out to be remarkably comfortable and felt 100x sturdier than the Saturn arcade pad. Although slower paced than Virtua Fighter, Toshinden was a much better game. I remarked to one of the developers "no offense, but this blows away the game you guys just made", the nod and expression he made was a non-verbal confirmation. I immediately knew the Playstation would be the "next big thing" in gaming.

Sony saturated the stores with Playstation propaganda. Our store was covered with "URnotE" signs and ran a promotional tape on continuous loop. As a newcomer to the market they had an uphill battle. Electronics giants Phillips, Panasonic, and NEC all failed to launch their CD system; Sony had no intention of joining their club.

September 9th was the advertised launch date. Unlike every other dated release, this was written in stone. We had extremely clear instructions to not sell the console one second before then at the risk of it being pulled from our chain by Sony. A couple customers asked if we'd open at midnight to sell it. The idea was so foreign to us that we didn't consider it for a second, contrast that to the midnight madness for modern console releases.

Sony did their homework. They learned from every successful, and more importantly failed, console launch before them. If anyone reading this is thinking about creating a new game console, here's what Sony did right:

• Priced the system at $100 less than a system with comparable hardware: it was cheaper but not so cheap that customers thought it was a third-rate system.
• Solid launch library: Customers had a good selection of titles to choose from on day one.
• Lined up third party developers: Namco and Capcom where the first to sign-on, many more followed.
• Defined and marketed to a target audience: to differentiate themselves from Nintendo they made it clear they were going after 18-30 year-old males. Their game library reflected that direction. After establishing a solid base they expanded to other demographics.
• Marketed the Playstation as a game system: none of this "multimedia system" nonsense, it just played games. This is a lesson they apparently forgot.
• Sleek black packaging: Playstation games just looked like something you wanted to have on your shelves at home.
• Adequate supplies: We rarely sold out of Playstation systems, they always found a way to get more out in time.

One early adopter of the Sony Playstation was Glenn "Big Dog" Robinson, then of the Milwaukee Bucks. He bought a Playstation and a number of games from our store but was by no means a frequent customer. He always paid in cash, wore more gold than human being I've ever seen, and had a posse of clingers-on following his every step. One of the more courteous customers we ever had. We never asked for autographs or pictures of him shopping at our store or anything like that.

One day I was talking with another employee about him a couple minutes after he left, some thing like "hey, Glenn Robinson was here again". A kid interrupted our conversation: